Juggling Your Dance Life

 by John Wilkins 

 

When I got the opportunity to teach a whole class at City College of San Francisco to juggle for a modern dance performance, I jumped at it. 

 

At age 50, I was the oldest of 14 students taking the class. When it came to dance, I felt like an old dog learning new tricks. But my juggling skills were strong enough to make me the natural leader in helping the class put together a modern dance and juggling performance in just 16 weeks. 

 

The class was a combination beginning modern dance class and production class. Each class meeting started with a technical modern dance warm-up, and during the first several weeks we used "structural improvisation" to develop performance confidence, coordination, spatial orientation, an ensemble feel and qualities of movement and elements of choreography The last part of the class was devoted to individual improvisation to develop group trust, to an aesthetic sense of how various movements and grouping of dancers worked, and to create an informal performance experience for the students. Students then discussed what they saw, and the feelings that watching each other invoked. 

 

After the fourth week of class I introduced juggling, and from that time on a small portion of time in each class was used for juggling practice. Each dancer received three tennis balls filled with pennies for practicing at home between classes. Most members of the class had never juggled before. 

 

All levels of dancers were involved in the creation and performance of the piece, which we called "Juggle Your Life." The more advanced dancers and enthusiastic beginners both were encouraged to choreograph short solos for the piece. 

 

The sound score was an eclectic collage which included the polyphonic singing of "Anonymous Four," "Spoken Word," the cool rock-n-roll song, "Green Onions," and a version of "In the Mood" which was clucked by chickens. Interwoven with the taped score was a live performer playing rhythmic patterns on "claves," wood sticks used commonly in Latin bands. The juggling balls, filled with pennies, added a jingling sound. At one point the only sound was that of balls rolling on the floor. The chance dropping of juggling balls added a dimension of spontaneity to the sound score. 

 

My first two-and-a-half minute solo with three pink silicone balls to the clucking of "In the Mood" was hilarious. I dropped, but worked it into a floor juggling and tap dance routine, then got it back up in the air. I tried every three and two ball trick I could remember in my last 14 years of juggling. This was my first public performance since Istanbul in 1992, because I've been recovering from rotator cuff surgery on both shoulders in 1994 and 1995. 

 

The crowd was receptive to my juggling solo, and their "Ooohs!" "Aaaaahs!" and roar of laughter and applause was thrilling. I felt so proud of the work we all did to put the show together. We had all worked hard. I had spent 10 hours a week in dance class, another 10 hours in art, and 35 hours at my job, but I got "A's" in my classes. 

 

Next semester I think I'll add a third dance class to my schedule, as if I didn't have enough juggling of my schedule already!